Friedman quietly redirected the Mont Pèlerin society away from Hayek’s original project.

Evidence

Milton Friedman never disparaged Hayek, whose insights and infl uence he consistently extolled, and drew no attention to his own differences from the other participants in the founding meeting at Mont Pèlerin. Nevertheless, he had, since inheriting Hayek’s role as the preeminent scholar in the society and the leading advocate of free markets in the public sphere, quietly precipitated a dramatic transformation in the membership’s worldview. Methodologically, he redirected the members’ focus away from abstract theory and toward empirical modes of analysis, in a transition that entailed the abandonment of the very inquiries into questions of value that Hayek had established the society to address. Eco nom ical ly, he cast aside a cautious and conservative policy of moderation and rehabilitated the advocacy of an unmediated laissezfaire. Strategically, he tore down the barriers his pre de ces sors had constructed between economists and public policy debates, and he both encouraged and enacted aggressive new rhetorical modes. John Davenport and Irving Kristol were not critics of the society in its inherent or historical form. Rather, they were expressing dissatisfaction with what— under Friedman’s formidable infl uence— it had become. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 537

Categorization

• XREF: Provides an internal history of the MPS’s transformation from its Hayekian values-focused founding toward empirical laissez-faire advocacy — connecting to the reader’s broader work on how austerity and neoliberalism were intellectually manufactured. — connects to: Hayek insisted the Mont Pèlerin Society stay private and philosophical, not engage in propaganda — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 333; Hayek designed the Mont Pèlerin Society as a closed ideological academy — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 193
• QUESTION: What specifically were the ‘inquiries into questions of value’ Hayek established the society to address, and when did Friedman’s empirical turn formally displace them?

Broader Connections

• Hayek insisted the Mont Pèlerin Society stay private and philosophical, not engage in propaganda #expands (0.75) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 333
• Hayek designed the Mont Pèlerin Society as a closed ideological academy #expands (0.70) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 193